MAA Distinguished Lecture Series

Select from any of the following videos below to watch a mathematician give detailed explanations of major explorations in the world of mathematics. Click here for more distinguished lectures on the MAA Youtube Channel

Math and the Vote

Moon Duchin is an associate professor of Mathematics at Tufts University and is the founding director of Tufts’ new interdisciplinary Program in Science, Technology, and Society, which spans scholarly approaches to putting science in social context.

Visualizing Hyperbolic Geometry

Dr. Evelyn Lamb is a freelance math and science writer based in Salt Lake City. She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics at Rice University in 2012 and taught at the University of Utah until 2015.

Restricted Patterns of the Past, Present, and Future

Zvezdelina Entcheva Stankova is a professor of mathematics at Mills College in Oakland, California, the founder of the Berkeley Math Circle, and an expert in the combinatorial enumeration of permutations with forbidden patterns

Mitigating America’s Achievement Gap

Dr. Talithia Williams, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, begins a discussion about how all of us, whether math educators, grandparents, or volunteers, can begin to cultivate a mathematical mindset in the young people around us.

Knot Theory and 3D Printing

Laura Taalman, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at James Madison University, discusses using technology to explore mathematics.

The Catalan Numbers

Alissa S. Crans, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University, introduces viewers to the Catalan numbers, which take on a variety of different guises as they provide the solution to numerous problems throughout mathematics.

Mirror Image Symmetry

Erica Flapan (Pomona College) explains why it is important to determine whether a molecule has mirror image symmetry, and discusses the differences between a geometric, chemical, and topological approach to understanding mirror image symmetry.

Math Makes Communication Possible

In this talk, Judy Walker will see that the answers to both of these questions hinge on beautiful mathematics that was once thought to be too abstract to be of any practical use.

Deciphering Recommendation Engines

Data scientist Cathy O’Neil provides a glimpse of the methods that Netflix, Google, and others apply to recommend or offer to users selections based on their apparent interests.